The ‘World’ Watches Oedipus on Tabloid TV

The local theater community is gearing up for the Republican convention, with pointed offerings such as Mac Wellman’s “Seven Blowjobs” and “FritzCON,” the interactive play in which theatergoers get to pretend they are Republican delegates. Perhaps the most ambitious of these offerings is the nominally interactive “The Whole World Is Watching,” from the San Diego Repertory Theatre. The show combines Sophocles with the modern media circus, a circus that will be descending momentarily upon this fair polis.

The premise: What if Oedipus were king of Calafia (i.e. San Diego), and Americans were drawn en masse to their TV screens by his incestuous tragedy? And what if the king’s story were relayed to us not by Sophocles but by, say, Jerry Springer? How would Creon fare on “The McLaughlin Group”? If Barbara Walters interviewed Ismene on her deathbed, would that be a good thing for history, or a bad thing?

Points of view about the media’s function fluctuate in this self-consciously conceptual evening. The first and most lively segment, based on “King Oedipus,” focuses on an unctuous talk show host named (and played by) Wayne Tibbetts. With mike in hand, Tibbetts roves around the auditorium so that his complicated coiffure bobs like the tail of a show pony. At the Lyceum Theater in downtown’s Horton Plaza, the hall is swimming with pretend camera people, production assistants, TV monitors, cue-card holders and audience warmer-uppers. The audience is urged periodically to scream out the words “And the whole world is watching!”

Once Oedipus (an affable Lamont D. Thompson) and his queen Jocasta (Darla Cash) arrive, along with secret servicemen and advisors, the Lyceum really does begin to resemble that circus the show is so eager to comment upon.

In the not-too-distant future, the play suggests, politicians will be beholden to the good graces of smug cue-card readers like Tibbetts, who almost single-handedly will control public opinion. In other words, Maury Povich will set public policy. (One of the seven signs of the apocalypse?)

Translating “King Oedipus” into the language of tabloid TV is amusing, to a point. When the king is confronted by Jocasta’s brother Creon, for example, the TV monitor reads, “My Brother-in-Law’s a Jerk.” It is also funny, if extremely obvious, to demonstrate how TV talk shows trivialize everything they touch. As Oedipus realizes that he has in fact killed his father and married his mother, he bangs his head into one of the set’s Greek columns. Watching, Tibbetts intones softly into the microphone, “Oh, the horror, the horror . . . and the whole world is watching.”

You get the point.

Thankfully, Douglas Jacobs and Scott Feldsher, who together wrote and directed, have mixed things up after intermission. The evening grows steadily more sober and leans toward a more serious, if still funky, retelling of “Antigone” and “Oedipus at Colonus.” The second half, though, has its own tone problems.

Antigone stands trial overseen by Creon (Douglas Roberts), now king, and a hostile panel of McLaughlin Group-like commentators, including representatives from UPI, AP and MTV. “Princess on Trial!” crows the voice-over. Playing Antigone, Karole Foreman delivers her anguished lines with tears streaming down her face and with spiritual strength and defiance. Meanwhile, from the panel, someone named Diogenes Rooney (Ron Russell) comments on her fate while doing a tedious impression of Andy Rooney, which produces laughs in an audience used to seeing this kind of satire on “The Tonight Show.” As the juxtaposition of the Greek and the modern world gets crasser, the show gets even less pointed as a comment on either world.

The final segment is by far the most theatrically serious. Antigone’s sister Ismene, the sole survivor of Oedipus’ line, tells her story to a Barbara Walters-type interviewer, played by the outstanding Linda Castro. With the show now acknowledging journalism’s value in the documentation of history, the audience may be wondering whether it’s supposed to love or hate its TV friends.

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As the elder Ismene (Darla Cash) finally expires, she is reunited with her family, all of them dressed in white as if going to a picnic in a Peter Weir movie. The evening’s late attempt at elegy takes on a dreamy and portentous tone--what might happen if Caryl Churchill were adapting Beckett. But the show has shifted gears impulsively, and it has not bothered to convince the audience to follow along.

“The Whole World Is Watching” is presented with a lot of energy and initiative. Its biggest failing is that it seems proud of ideas that are obvious and sometimes belabored. Still, this is a notable effort by the San Diego Rep to do something worthwhile during a time when--everyone, join with me here--the whole world is watching.

* “The Whole World Is Watching,” San Diego Repertory Theatre, Lyceum Theatre in Horton Plaza. Tue. 7 p.m., Wed.-Sat. 8 p.m. and Sun. 2 and 7 p.m. Ends Aug. 10. $22-$27. (619) 235-8025. Running time: 3 hours, 10 minutes.

With: Michael Douglas Hummel, Wayne Tibbetts, Ron Russell, Philip Beaumont, Lamont D. Thompson, Catharine Christof, Brian Caspe, Douglas Roberts, Francis Thumm, Gabe Anderson, Darla Cash, Joy Woodward, Linda Castro, Ray Fraggi, Stefan Donae Umstead, Manuel Fernandes, Peter Loalza, Frank Ogwaro, Kirsten Brandt, Karole Foreman, Sarah Goodes, Gian-Claudio Gentile, Leigh Hatfield, Alison Holman, Zach Malone, John Garcia, Jaleisha Jackson, Hilary Clarke.

A San Diego Repertory Theatre production. Written and directed by Douglas Jacobs and Scott Feldsher. Based upon the Oedipus Trilogy by Sophocles. Sets and lights D. Martyn Bookwalter. Video design and production Stuart Culpepper. Costumes Brandin Baron. Composer/sound Pea Hicks. Stage manager Diana Moser.